Empire: Total War is a game based on the musketry warfare that revolutionized how the battles were fought. The insertion of gun powder and the changes that it brought is one of the hallmarks of this game. The changes in social structures, a period of revolutions, of turmoil. The span of the campaign is the turbulent 18th century, a period that shaped great empires with the colonization of new continents and the stabilization and growth of a global economy.

Empire: Total War introduces to us a great number of changes, being the most valuables the addition of a new type of battlefield, water; a new diplomacy system; a complete new technology system; and a great review of the economic system. Those changes come in the light of what the scope of the game had, major naval battles, the hardships of battle using line infantry, the age of enlightenment, colonies and empires that the sun never goes down on. Those changes only add to the immersion of the game, seeing how you can go to battle with a aristocratic empire and suddenly fight a renewed republic with troops ready to defend their acquired freedom.

The campaign is just a free form game where you control one of 12 lucky nations on an exact replica of the known entire world. And the map is simply huge! Its so huge that your computer might suffer excessive lag when moving the camera around the world. The world is divided into theaters (not the places you watch plays or movies), which are further divided territories which are in turn have one city and many towns in each. The difference between a town and a city is that the former you can only build one building on and you can't recruit a single unit while the latter allows you to recruit any unit you can recruit and can build from 2 to 5 buildings. One neat feature on the campaign is the ability to change your government. To do so you have to piss off one of the two kinds of people in your home province. If you pissed them off enough they'll revolt against your current leaders and you'll be given the option to fight with or against them. If the revolt wins you get to change your government; if the revolt is crushed like some annoying bug crawling on your favorite carpet the opposite occurs. It's possible to have a revolution that changes only your faction leader while maintaining your current government type, which is the only way of getting rid of leaders in a monarchy. There are three types of government. One allows you to act more like God on earth while oppressing the majority of your country's population. Another type is one where you give the people so much freedom that you have almost no control in the affairs of state. The third type is a combination of both but with toned down features of the previously mentioned governments. You also get to control a group of guys called gentlemen. These wigged men are to be used as a form of entertainment by dueling with a gentleman from another faction. When they duel a short but very hilarious clip appears which allows you to see what happened in the duel. Gentlemen also make your nation more technologically advanced when they are forced to live in schools. Another kind of agent you get to control is a rake (not the thing you use to collect leaves that have fallen onto your yard during fall). Rakes are the guys you use to eliminate anyone who you don't like for whatever reason. Well not everyone actually; unlike previous Total War games you can't eliminate rival faction leaders by assassination - faction leaders are practically immune from assassination. As with previous Total War games you also can't assassinate someone within your own faction, no matter how annoying that character may be. Rakes can also be used as peeping toms to know what's in an enemy city, town, or army or what traits some characters have. Diplomats have been removed from the game, due to micromanagement reasons, and have been replaced by a static diplomacy screen which allows you to do diplomatic actions to your neighbors - from giving gifts to making peace with an annoying foe who has not attacked for almost 50 years. The removal of diplomats though has made it impossible to bribe characters into working for your faction. For the first time in the series, you can finally recruit generals in cities. Retraining units are much easier now, since all you need to do is just to select all depleted units in an army and click the "reinforce button" on the interface; you don't need to be in a settlement to do this. You can also recruit units from generals - a general with a recruit order will order the nearest settlement/s with a sufficient building level to produce the required unit/s. If a faction loses all of its territories in the theater where its capital was originally located, it is as good as dead. Its overseas colonies though will rejoice the fall of their distant overlords and that they are going to experience what it's like to rule under their own banner.

More than fifty factions are included in the game, 36 of which are playable. The other factions cannot be unlocked and have to be modded into the game. The eleven playable factions from the the beginning are:

The introduction of the naval warfare was a major addition to the series. This new and unexplored battlefield was plagued with problems at the game launch. Pathfinding errors made navigation difficult and real world strategies used by admirals from the past didn't work correctly. Land battles suffered from AI problems as well, which resulted in a commander to inevitably win a battle unless faced with overwhelming opposition. Patch 1.6 has helped to alleviate these launch issues.

ETW multiplayer was supposed to be revolutionary with the addition of a brand new feature, the multiplayer online campaign. Aside that we can also highlight that with the integration with steam the game could get a ladder system, giving players the motivation to pursue constant online battles.

The Multiplayer online campaign only reached beta phase, and thus is not integrated into the game. Although it was fully implemented in the Napoleon: Total War. This move was done since that the Hot Seat feature would be discarded in this title.

Although it is still in beta, its possible to conduct a campaign with other players, this requires a registration